Hello INNOVATEwest Community,
Strategic communications isn’t just an executive or public relations move; a well-documented strategy can help the entire business grow. Sharing with INNOVATEwest, Bianca Ball—a Senior Consultant & Creative Strategist at Hill+Knowlton—explained the top five ways communications can grow your business.
Key takeaways:
- Good communications can help you build up your brand, become a thought leader, attract top talent, manage your reputation, and drive sales.
- The best communications strategies think about the customer—where they engage and what messages will resonate with them.
- Your key messages should flow through every customer-facing part of the business, from public relations to marketing and sales.
Dave Tyldesley
Co-Founder/Producer SAAS NORTH & INNOVATEwest
Editor INNOVATEwest PULSE
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Rapid evolution in an industry doesn’t just apply to technology; it changes how people talk about the space and the players in it.
These shifting sands create opportunities for startups and enterprise innovation teams alike to break through with a novel message. In other words, strategic communications can be a growth lever rather than simply providing investor updates or press releases for a new fundraising round.
This is a space Bianca Ball knows well; she’s a Senior Consultant and Creative Strategist at Hill+Knowlton and regularly works with tech and consumer companies of all sizes. Sharing with INNOVATEwest ahead of the April summit, Bianca explained more about how strategic communications can become a business growth lever.
1. Building brand awareness
In a crowded market, companies want to establish brand resonance; in a novel space or new category, companies want to build credibility. To differentiate in either case, Bianca said it’s crucial to build two things: a strong brand identity and a clear messaging strategy.
“By developing a strong brand identity and messaging strategy, companies can differentiate themselves from competitors and create a lasting impression on their target audience,” said Bianca.
Achieving this requires a few different steps:
- Conducting well-structured research to understand your target market.
- Building context-relevant messaging that resonates with people as both individuals and in their capacity as employees or business leaders.
- Start with a key message then identify platform-relevant downstream messages across all of your social media, email marketing, and website content.
Bianca points to Apple as an inspiration for how brand awareness impacts business growth. The company, said Bianca, “built a reputation for innovation and design excellence” through its sleek industrial design and incredible consistency. This also flows through their messaging strategy, which includes industrial-chic announcement events with regular updates on new products that are impactful for its curious, tech-savvy target audience.
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2. Thought leadership
Becoming a thought leader is more than a single post; it’s an ongoing marketing channel that positions your brand (and you as the author) as an expert in a given subject area.
“Tech companies often operate in highly specialized fields, and sharing insights and expertise can help position them as industry leaders and experts in their field,” said Bianca.
Bianca said developing a thought leadership strategy requires a few key pieces:
- Continuous content: Publish the same message across multiple channels in platform-relevant ways.
- Value-focus: The hallmark of thought leadership is that it helps people in some way. For instance, “value” could mean a new perspective, sharing a fact or story, or explaining a how-to.
- Audience relevance: All content should be relevant to your audience in some way. This doesn’t mean you can’t be personal, though. For instance, if your core audience is remote CEOs, you can just as easily share growth tips as you can travel stories about working from cool locations.
Bianca cites Google as a powerful example of this; in particular, their thought leadership around AI. The company not only openly shares their AI approach but also leverages technical documentation to help the world’s citizen developers better understand artificial intelligence.
3. Manage reputation & crisis communications
No one likes a crisis, but anything can happen in a highly-connected internet world.
“No matter how well-run a company is, there is always the risk of something going wrong,” said Bianca. “A strategic communications program can help companies prepare for these scenarios.”
In particular, Bianca said companies need to focus on a few things:
Build a response plan: Identify different types of scenarios (e.g. product failure, cyber incident, PR issue, etc.) and the rough steps you’ll take—and messages you’ll share—for each. Keep in mind, these should be informed by your values.
“By having a clear plan in place, companies can respond quickly and effectively to any issues that arise, minimizing damage to their reputation,” said Bianca.
Proactive reputation management: Online monitoring (sometimes called “social listening”) can help you spot potential issues and mitigate or solve them before anything larger happens.
“By addressing issues promptly and transparently, you can demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction and build trust with your audience,” said Bianca.
4. Attract & retain top talent
Communications is not just about your branding efforts—it can also help with hiring. A great communications strategy, said Bianca, can showcase your culture, values, and mission to potential employees.
First, think about how your vision and values inform your other content. For example, written thought leadership should embody your values; if you have a value of fun or playfulness, that should come through in your content structure and tone.
Second, plan for talent-specific communications. This might mean niche interviews and content (for example, in popular blogs regularly read by people you want to hire) or it could mean redesigning your careers page to reflect your values.
“By showcasing your company culture and values, you can attract candidates who align with your mission and vision,” said Bianca.
5. Drive sales & revenue growth
Your messaging strategy should directly inform your overall marketing and sales efforts. If you say something in your public communications, it should both show up in your marketing and be true in your sales and delivery process. But the same can also work in reverse—a powerful marketing campaign can influence your upstream communications planning.
Here are some of Bianca’s best tips:
- Pick communications channels based on where ideal customers are likely to engage.
- Leverage different communication mediums (e.g. email and social media) to double down on engagement.
- Don’t forget about SEO in your messaging plan.
“When developing a marketing strategy, it’s important to focus on the customer journey,” said Bianca. “This involves understanding the different stages of the buying process and developing messaging and content that speaks to customers at each stage… to increase engagement and drive conversions.”
Communicate & grow
Ultimately, what you say to the market is what the market will say about you. And if you say nothing, you may not like how the market describes you; that’s why a communications plan is so important.
“By building brand awareness, establishing thought leadership, attracting, and retaining top talent, managing reputation and crisis communications, and driving sales and revenue growth, companies can achieve their business objectives and stay ahead of the curve,” said Bianca.